If you really believe this is true …
Then you are desperately ill-informed.
And considering that you live on disability benefits, your belief is doubly foolish. The government affects your life more directly than it does most of us. You maintain your ignorance to your own detriment.
I’m 31 years old. The first time I voted was the last federal election. Bush finally scared me into voting, because I desperately want(ed) that man out of office. The next time I’ll vote is this November, because there’s a TX Constitutional amendment on the ballot that would make gay marriages unconstitutional, and even though I’m almost positive the voters will vote for it, I have to do my part to try to stop such a gross injustice.
So yes, I do understand the OP’s position. I couldn’t be made to vote until I finally found something I cared enough about.
Politics is not just some hobby for the idle and the snooty. It is real life. In the last four years, thousands of people have died violent deaths for no other reason than who got elected president. People should get offended, because what you are really saying is that not only do your not care for you own well-being, you don’t care about anyone else either, including your fellow countrymen.
So, good for you that you love your country. Apparently you just love the dirt that it’s built on and care fuck-all for the people of your country.
And that’s why – even though you are perfectly within your rights not to vote – your attitude about politics and voting is reason for people to get upset.
Trunk: What I said was that I have the right to ignore someone, informed or not, that doesn’t exercise their right to participate. If that makes me full of myself, well then I guess there are worse things to be full of.
This Year’s Model: Um…sorry. Got carried away. Me= :wally
Bolding mine.
I’ve heard this line before and it never ceases to confuse me. I know it sounds sort of deep in a teenage skate-punk anarchist way, but it’s completely false.
Do you seriously believe if Al Gore were elected president in 2000 we would have invaded Iraq? The Bush Tax cuts for the wealthy would have been enacted? The Christian right would have such a say in matters of policy? An amendment banning gay-marriage would have been proposed? The No Child Left Behind act would have passed? Money earmarked for New Orleans Levee improvements would have been transferred to the Iraq war?
Now maybe you think these policies are good things. But even if you do, you can’t say that the 2000 elections didn’t make a difference. You’d just think they made the right difference
The 2004 elections were far less important than the 2000 elections, since all Kerry could have done was mitigate some of the damage Bush has caused, but at least with Kerry we would not be getting such an utter lightweight as Harriet Miers on the SCOTUS. And we might have had someone competent in charge of FEMA.
Oh, and if just one state had a different electorate–Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2004–the elction would have had a different outcome.
Again, I’m not going to judge someone who’s simply apathetic. And if someone is willfully uninformed it’s probably best that they don’t vote. But to say “I care about this country” and not vote is simply illogical. And I say this as a DC resident, whose vote makes less difference than any other American’s.
This Years Model: Shouldn’t this thread be moved to the Pit? It’s a pretty emotional issue for a lot of people.
I’ll comment as someone that knows they should vote more often than they do- I catch the major local and federal races, but tend to shy away from school board, etc. races.
As with anything else, Love is a behavior. You telling us you care about this country and yet not voting does not strike me as caring at all. I think that, a person dependent on government services and monies would care about your own self-interest, though. this appears to not be the case.
But, as someone else said, you have the right to do whatever you want when it comes to this. We also have the right to hold our opinions about you. Isn’t it great?
My only question is, what do you do instead of voting to show that you care? Do you involve yourself in other civic activities? Community activities? Volunteering?
If this thread is moved, it will go to the Pit. However, I am confident that the Teeming Millions will conduct themselves according to the decorum required in IMHO, as the super-majority of posters in this thead have done.
Boy, that was high-falutin’, wasn’t it?
I’m sweating just reading it!
Trunk: I just realized I completely misread your post. I thought you were advocating the position I bolded. Obviously you weren’t. My apologies.
I’ve heard a saying, which I can’t find a source for: you may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you. This sentiment has been expressed by a number of posters in this thread, and I believe it’s true. Decisions made by politicians at all levels affect all of our lives. Ignoring what they do and not taking part in the process that elects and influences them is, perhaps by definition, ignorant.
Yes, and I DO happened to believe that those things make a difference.
I believe that politicians make a difference, that a corporation can make a difference, even that individuals can make a difference. All for good or bad.
I just don’t believe that voting makes a difference. It makes people happy because it gives them the illusion that they have power, and that makes people comfortable.
Doesn’t everyone feel so giddy on election day. . .like they’re sticking it to the man, or like someone is hearing their voice, like they’re doing their CIVIC DUTY :rolleyes: .
But in reality. . .the gas you burn driving to the poll and the paper they print your vote on did more damage to the environment than your vote helped that Green party guy you just voted for.
Voting is a joke. Some of us have just made peace with it.
I’m glad you recognize that you should vote on the local issues. It’s funny, but two things that get people’s attention are children and taxes. Here in NJ, school budgets and school boards are decided locally in each town that has a school district, which is just about all of them. The school budget is usually a huge percentage of the local tax burden, yet these referenda are usually decided by a very small fraction of the electorate.
Many years ago, I was involved in my local school board. This is a town of over 50,000 residents, that has a half dozen elementary schools, an “upper elementary” school, a middle school, and a very large high school. A thousand votes for one candidate in a field of six for three school board seats was considered a huge turnout. Candidates for the board have won or lost by a mere six votes.
Yet many of the people who never, ever become the slightest bit knowledgeable about the schools, the budget or the candicates will bitch and moan about how they perceive the schools to be inferior and the taxes too high. Go figure.
The one election in which one has a chance of actually having an effect is the one that almost nobody votes in.
Hence the rolleyes. You’re so convinced of your correctness in this matter that no amount of reasoned argument seems able to change your mind.
You’ve asserted repeatedly that voting doesn’t matter because your one vote generally isn’t the deciding factor in an election. Does voting matter when you are the tie-breaker? Why only then? Since nobody is guaranteed to cast the vote that decides the victor, should nobody vote? If your one vote doesn’t matter, do the two votes between us matter? Do the votes of the SDMB’s readership matter? The population of Florida’s votes? How many votes does it take to get from meaningless to meaningful? How do you get there but with my vote and your vote?
On the other hand, you’ve also claimed that “voting is a joke.” Is it your opinion, then, that every possible election result will produce the same outcome? If so, on what grounds do your base your claim? If not, in what way is voting meaningless?
:dubious: :dubious: :dubious: It seems to me if you post this, you are “so convinced of your correctness in this matter that no amount of reasoned argument seems able to change your mind.” In other words, pot meet kettle. Kettle meet pot.
I think it’s obvious that there are two sides to this issue - both of which are being capably espoused. Therefore (to have a rigorous debate on the merits) there need not be any final change of heart.
Thanks, you beat me to this. Local issues invariably have the greatest effect in people’s pocketbooks, yet draw the fewest voters. The local school district (Disclaimer: also my employer) gets about 2/3 of the $7000 or so each year I pay in property taxes.
This year, there was a referendum held to increase that amount by about $200-$300 on a house the size of mine. Much more on some of the bigger homes, and in a district with about 80,000 eligible voters, fewer than 4000 people made the decision for the rest.
“Voting is a joke?”
Nonsense. Provide me with an argument against voting that I and those with whom I share this position cannot refute and I will concede that voting is a futile endeavor. Similarly, if you feel that any of my assertions are in error, please rebut them, and I will answer to the best of my ability.
You need to ask yourself, “what’s an election do?”
Forgetting the electoral college for now, perhaps in a “perfect” deomcratic state, you could sample the brain waves of every eligible voter in the country and take the guy who comes out on top.
And we treat an election as if that’s what happened. But in reality, an election is a sampling of the populace. It has a margin of error, much like a Time/CNN poll that samples only 1500 people.
However, we’ve been taught from day 1 to think that it’s a complete survey of the public will, as if the election was a perfect representation of what the country wants. Here’s the good bit for you voters: even if you realize that it’s not, your next line of defense is, “well, the people who don’t vote are the apathetic or ignorant anyway so we’re better off this way.”
Back to those Time/CNN polls. You’ve seen them sample, say, 1500 people and they have a margin of error of +/- 3%? If that comes out to 60% saying “Bush” and 40% saying Kerry, and you’re a Kerry supporter you’re pretty dang worried. You probably even realize that if they polled you, that would have changed to about 59.99% to 40.01%, right? With the same margin of error. You didn’t make much of a difference in that sampling.
So. . .what do you think the margin of error is when they sample 110,000,000 people on election day? How important do you think your contribution is?
Sure, the last elections were close. . .within a percent, not good enough for a poll with a MOE of +/- 3%, but when you’re polling 111,000,000 out of a populace of 300,000,000 (fewer eligible voters), the error is something like that is infinitessimal, and not only that, it’s completely dominated by the error present in the system anyway. . .machine error, voter error, voting booth worker error. . .lots of sources of error in an election. Why do you think every recount turns up a new number?
If you think that going to the polls to cast your vote (and I’m not talking about a voting BLOC here and I’m not talking about YOU as a member of a 3 person city council) makes a difference in that process, then you need to educate yourself a little better about what exactly is going on.
You need to come to terms with the mathematics of an election – even a local election – before you start throwing around accusations that OTHERS are too convinced of their correctness.
I’m sorry, Trunk, but I don’t understand this post. There’s a big difference between an election and a poll and the difference is that at the end of an election, you decide who gets into office and the person who gets into office gets to make decisions on your behalf.
It doesn’t matter that voting doesn’t match some kind of theoretical ideal reflection of the will of the people. What matters is someone wins. And what counts is the actual votes that were cast, not some amorphous idea of the public will.
Very well. IMHO, voting is a right possessed by each and every American citizen. As I understand it, your opinion is that voting is a duty.
Because I think that voting is a right, I also think that one may choose NOT to exercise his or her right. That is perfectly valid to me. For example another right is the right against self-incrimination. You may choose NOT to invoke this right. Just as you may choose not to vote.
I can think of no reason that would make voting compulsory. Now perhaps it may be in your self-interest. And perhaps it may be the “best” way to change the government. BUT IMHO it is not legally required, nor morally.
This is certainly the position of several of this thread’s participants. However, let me note that this is a separate argument than the one I have made above. I would like you to address both please.
“The public will” is not an amorphous idea. It’s what we’re trying to determine. What is the goal every election year? VOTER TURNOUT!!!
All you voters should admit that you desire 100% voter turnout (that’s what this thread is about anyway).
Ask yourself: why do you want that? Do you just want 100% voter turnout because YOU need to do it so why shouldn’t Trunk? Or do you want 100% voter turnout because you think that’s the democratic ideal?
And if that IS the ideal, what if I told you we’re achieving the same ends with 60% voter turnout?
Do you dispute that that is the ideal, or do you dispute that we’re achieving the same ends?